


but if you close your eyes (does it almost feel like nothing changed at all)

by brella



Category: Morning Glories
Genre: Broken Families, Gen, Hugs, Implied/Referenced Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-21
Updated: 2014-10-21
Packaged: 2018-02-22 00:30:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2487812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brella/pseuds/brella
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One time that each of Fortunato’s brothers and sisters hugged him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	but if you close your eyes (does it almost feel like nothing changed at all)

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for Macey for the [what faith is](http://blevins.livejournal.com/29194.html?thread=556810#t556810) ficathon. I, too, wish for Fortunato Medeiros to receive many hugs.

1.   
  
"I’m sorry," Akiko yells, "But I’m just really scared and nervous and I need to hug you for a second, okay?"   
  
Fortunato blinks. Akiko’s grip on him is winding and strong, more like she’s trying to clutch a stuffed animal close to her than an actual person. Her face is buried in his shirt.   
  
Hesitantly, a little awkwardly, he lifts one hand and gently pats the crown of her head. His face burns with embarrassment. No one at this camp has ever touched him, mostly because he hasn’t wanted them to, for fear that they are only doing it out of a compulsion he did not intend to instill.  
  
He barely understands what she’d said – his English is still not so good, and Akiko always chatters at such a high and energetic velocity.   
  
"O-Okay," he answers, unsure. Akiko doesn’t let go of him for a while – she starts to sniffle a little, which almost flings him into a panic, because dealing with both human contact  _and_  a girl’s tears in the same day is an endeavor for which he is not equipped, but the sound doesn’t intensify.   
  
"Fortunato," Akiko says, muffled, "I don’t know what’s going to happen to us there. I’m freaking out a little. I know we’re supposed to be trained for this, but I—" She trails off, the words forever unspoken, and burrows her face closer. "I’ll miss you."   
  
That, he understands. He pats her head one more time before clearing his throat and stepping back, not wanting to look her in the eye, not wanting to confront the wet spots on her round, sunny face.   
  
"Okay, fine," she blurts out, sounding wounded. "Fine. Sorry. Forget it."  
  
They board the bus the next day, and he sits in silence. He hears her voice, hopeful and a little too loud, the way it always is when she’s nervous, but he doesn’t answer her – instead, he prays, prays that she will survive, untouched, and never lose the light that spills out of her smiles.

 

* * *

 

2. 

Two weeks after they arrive at the Academy, Irina sends Fortunato out on a night patrol for reconnaissance. He is out for longer than he should be, because the guards’ shift change is postponed, and so he has to stay in the woods overnight, hiding in the trees, jumping at every small noise. He misses his small Bible, then; even though he knows all the verses by heart, it is a reassuring thing to hold and to occupy himself with, thumbing down all of the passages with the word  _love_.   
  
He returns to the campus just after dawn, and must slip back to his room immediately to avoid detection, so he closes the door as silently behind him as he can, but it squeaks, and the light clicks on.   
  
Instinctively, Fortunato flattens himself against the door as some strange form of camouflage, but then he hears Ian’s voice: “Holy fucking  _shit_ , Fortunato, it’s you!”   
  
"I—" Fortunato starts to say, puzzled – Ian is the only one present in the room; their roommates are nowhere to be seen – but before he can speak further, Ian has tripped his way down the ladder and across the floor, stopping in front of Fortunato and fumbling his glasses on.   
  
"Where the fuck  _were_  you, you idiot?” Ian barks, throwing his hands out. “We all thought you’d died or something! I mean, I told them it was stupid to expect you to survive longer than half a month, but I didn’t actually  _mean_  it; Christ, do you know what Akiko would’ve done if it turned out you’d gotten… locked in the dungeon or something? Fucking hell!”   
  
Fortunato winces at each profanity – he so wishes that Ian’s vocabulary were more wholesome, but he gave up on that front long ago.   
  
"I-I am sorry, brother," he manages to get out through Ian’s yelling. "The… the guards did not trade off as sister Irina assumed; I was forced to hide until—"  
  
"Oh, for Christ’s sake, you prat," Ian snarls, and then, to Fortunato’s astonishment, his skinny arms lunge out and yank Fortunato into a hug. "I fucking hate you, you know that?"   
  
Fortunato stands very, very still. It is the only response he can think of. The moment is fleeting, as within seconds, Ian has withdrawn and shoved him off with a disgusted sneer on his face.   
  
"You tell  _anyone_  I did that, and I’ll knock your eye out,” he snaps. Fortunato nods repeatedly, because Ian takes his threats very seriously, in that he usually has Irina carry them out for him.   
  
"Fuck," Ian repeats with a sigh. He runs his hand through his hair and it’s only then that Fortunato notices the bags under his eyes.   
  
He chooses not to say anything.

 

* * *

 

3.   
  
He did not remember how to sleep comfortably in a bed, at first. He had passed the first five nights on the floor.   
  
He is put back in the room he once shared with Ian. No one will tell him where his brother has gone, and he wants to weep with the pain of it – the pain of knowing that Akiko is no longer with them, even if her spirit lingers; the pain of knowing that Hisao has been gone for some time, that he was never given the chance to greet him after so many years; the pain, now, of knowing that Ian’s bed is cold – but he can no longer weep, and it is a strange sensation, to want to do it so badly, to feel it building, but to never be allowed release.   
  
"Where is Ian?" he calls out one day, when he hears the other two roommates moving around, speaking in whispers.   
  
There is a long silence. He knows they are hoping that if they wait long enough, he will forget that they are there, but he stays still, listening, attentive. Finally, one of them sighs.   
  
"Who knows," he grunts. "Rumor is he tried to do something with… what’s downstairs. It went wrong, though. Pamela says Nine has a fresh body bag, but. You know. It’s Pamela."   
  
"I say serves him right," the other roommate sneers. "Maybe you should join him, traitor, since you both wanted to destroy everything we’ve worked for so badly."   
  
Fortunato does not apologize; instead, the phantom tears clamoring more desperately than they ever have, he sways up and stumbles through the empty space until his hands find the wall, and he follows it out of the room, down the hall, crashing into one person after another but never slowing. He counts his footsteps, counts the seconds, until he thinks he’s there, and he knocks softly on the door, unable to breathe, suddenly.   
  
He hears it open.   
  
"Oh—uh…" A boy’s voice answers him, covers the din of the moving students. "I think you might have the wrong room—"  
  
"Please," Fortunato interjects, sagging against the door frame. "Is this where… Guillaume Sorel lives?"   
  
"Fortunato?" Something unravels in the center of him at the sound of Guillaume’s voice. He hears feet hit the floor and within seconds, broad hands are gripping his shoulders, guiding him inside with a barked order of, "Move, Hunter."   
  
"You know, Guillaume, you really must bringing so many of your weird little friends around without proper introduction—"  
  
"Another word out of you and you’ll lose your tongue," Guillaume snaps. "Here—Fortunato, here, here’s a chair…"   
  
Fortunato eases cautiously downwards, steered by Guillaume into a sitting position on a wooden chair. There is the rustle of bodies distancing themselves from him, but Guillaume has not let go of him; he cannot slow his sharp and rapid breathing no matter how he tries.   
  
"What happened to your…?" Guillaume cannot finish the question, his voice hitching on something Fortunato cannot identify. Fortunato shakes his head wordlessly, hoping that Guillaume recognizes his insistence that it doesn’t matter.  
  
"Ian…" he chokes out. "Ian is…" And he has never been so scared in his life, he thinks, except when he was lying, bound and gagged, his father’s cries of agony still roaring in his ears, on the floor of a warehouse as a child.   
  
"No, no, we can bring him back!" the voice that belongs to the stranger Hunter interjects. "M-Maybe. I can kind of – change the fabric of the universe, and stuff, so—"  
  
"I thought," Fortunato whimpers, reaching out to bunch Guillaume’s shirt in one hand, "I thought I would never see you again."   
  
"I’m right here; I’m all right." Guillaume sounds more emotional than Fortunato has ever heard him. "Vanessa’s all right, too, and…"  
  
Fortunato does not give him the chance to finish. He uses the grip he has on Guillaume to tug him closer, hunching over and dropping his forehead onto Guillaume’s shoulder; immediately, Guillaume’s arms encircle him, strong and shaking.   
  
"I’ll…" That’s Hunter again. "Hey. Jun, Ike – give them a sec; let’s go get some lunch, or something."   
  
Fortunato is glad. Guillaume has never touched anyone but Hisao, not really. Fortunato, in his selfishness, in that moment, hopes that his brother Guillaume will never let go of him.

 

* * *

 

4.   
  
Autumn is starting. Fortunato can feel it in the barren, rain-swollen air; he can feel the leaves crumbling away from the trees that birthed them. He spends much of his time outside, now – Akiko is quieter behind the Academy’s doors, and his room only serves to remind him of the sound of the staff moving all of Ian’s belongings out of it (and Fortunato had managed to convince them to let him keep a comic book he cannot read). He has spent so much time in the darkness, in the moldy stench of what is underground, that it is a comfort to know that the sun is still there, and always will be, though the clouds have come to hide it, now.   
  
"Fortunato?"   
  
He jumps slightly, his whole body tensing in preparation for the strike of a whip to which the spiderwebbing scars on his back belong, and he hears a quiet but sharply contrite intake of breath close by.   
  
"It’s me," Vanessa murmurs. "Don’t be afraid; it’s Vanessa."   
  
Fortunato loosens. He had not been afraid, exactly. Fear had not been his ally in the cell, and so he had staved it off with prayer, no matter how much Miss Daramount had beaten him for it, no matter how carefully she ran her fingers along the skin of his arms and whispered delightedly what a shame it was, that such beautiful eyes had to be lost.   
  
He feels her body settle on the grass next to him. He closes his Bible (the Braille copy that Hunter had stolen from the library and left outside his door) and allows the usual warm contentment that comes with Vanessa’s company open up inside of him.   
  
"Hello," he says. It has been a long time since he has smiled, but he does it now, knowing that Vanessa is here, that Vanessa breathes and protects. "It is… nice out today."   
  
"Yeah," Vanessa agrees. He can hear her wan smile. "Yeah, it is. How’re you holding up?"  
  
"I… I am all right," he answers. The words, for some reason, do not feel like a lie. "And you?"   
  
"Fortunato, I—" The words burst out of her abruptly, thick with what sounds worrisomely similar to approaching sobs. "I’m… I can’t imagine what you went through, down there, but I just… I’m so happy you’re here; I’m  _so happy_ —”  
  
Now she does cry, dissolving into it, and he thinks he can picture her face if he concentrates, but it is harder now than it used to be. He regrets, very suddenly, not speaking to her enough, not speaking to any of them enough, for fear that their companionship was not of their own volition, because he knows, now, hearing Vanessa sob beside him in the afternoon, remembering how tightly Guillaume had held onto him, that family is not something that any ability can build for him; he has built it himself, and they have built it around him, and now they are splintered and frayed and no longer the children playing in the desert and thinking that the world would be kind to them.   
  
"Sister, don’t—" He reaches tentatively toward where he thinks her face is. "Don’t cry. Do not cry."   
  
His thumb grazes her cheek and, a bit clumsily, he wipes away the wet streaks on it. Vanessa’s hands close around his, cool and trembling, holding him in place.   
  
"You were never meant for this, Fortunato," she croaks, sniffling, and he feels her cheek tighten with what must be an agonized, contorted expression of regret. "It should have been  _us_  down there; it should have been  _our_  eyes, and now it’s too late for us to—”  
  
"No," Fortunato insists, in the firmest tone he thinks he has ever used. He struggles to construct the words: "Once I thought that the only thing I wanted was… to be left alone. I did not know my purpose. I sought salvation for sins I did not understand – but I understand, now. I no longer have my eyes, but I have my…" He frowns. "My…  _A família que eu encontrei._  We must not lose hope, sister; we must—”  
  
Words have never served him well. A part of him is grateful that he does not finish after Vanessa pulls him close to her the way a lioness would comfort a cub; her embrace is gentle, and she sways a little, and for the first time, Fortunato reciprocates, remembering the girl beneath the desert sun who would always share her dessert with him and who always volunteered to spar in his place.

 

* * *

 

5.

Irina does not let go of him.   
  
He can hear the flames consuming the Academy through his ringing ears, and he can hear the stone grinding together as it falls to rubble. He almost stumbles under her weight – she had sprinted at him out of the chaos, shouting his name, and leaped onto him, wrapping both arms and legs around him, clinging to him like a sloth to a branch. Her breathing is coming out in heaves that wrack her whole shivering body, and she’s babbling in a muddled mess of Ukrainian and English, clawing at him as if to pull herself closer.   
  
"Fortunato," she shrieks, sounding almost delirious. "Fortunato, I thought you were dead, I thought you were dead, I thought—"  
  
He has never seen her like this. The most visceral emotion she has ever shown has been anger, which her wrathful, pale body is built for; this is frightening and strange, this terror and grief and blind elation, this little girl’s unrestrained chaos of the heart. Guillaume had told him that Casey had agreed to get her out during the attack on the school. Fortunato does not know how it had been done; further, he does not know how she remembers him, having spent so long in Mr. N’s care, subdued and reconstructed and destroyed bit-by-bit.   
  
She snuggles ferociously closer, nuzzling the side of his face, whispering, “You are alive.  _You are alive_. I will tear them apart for what they have done to you; I swear it; I will  _skin them_.”   
  
Fortunato shakes his head. “They are all dead, sister. We have broken the cycle. We are free.”   
  
She starts peppering loud, frantic kisses all over his face. Tears smear over his cheeks from hers. He can feel the contortions of her sorrowful mouth, and his arms have started to go numb from holding her so tightly around the middle.   
  
"Fortunato," she rasps, pressing her sweaty, soot-stained forehead against his, "I hope that we will live forever."   
  
Her thumb traces a ring around each of the spaces where his eyes used to be, in the circling shape of a lemniscate, around and around again. He can feel morning break, far off, and he can hear footsteps approaching – he can hear voices he knows like the shapes of his own fingers clamoring against him. Guillaume, a mountain. Vanessa, a river. Irina, a blizzard.   
  
They make the world, together. And Irina still does not let go of him.

 


End file.
